Festival Brides Love: South Coast Events

I hope you’re all fully recovered from your Easter hangover now.. Although, I’ve gotta say I’m still working on that! Today we’re sharing a fabulous company with you: South Coast Events.

From their awesome Wedding Festival style fairs in Dorset and Hampshire to their involvement with incredible Dorset wedding venue, Longthorns Farm, this company is all kinds of exciting! Keep scrolling to get involved lovely people!

Tell us a little about yourself…

I’m Sam (the girl kind) and I run South Coast Events. We’re an event management company based in Dorset, where I live with my husband and crazy fur-baby, Hudson (a Maltepoo). We’ve been renovating a house for the past couple of years, which has been… Interesting (read as blood, sweat and lots of tears!)

I have such a passion for organising events and love it when a unique idea comes together! As the events we organise grow, so does the team (I don’t mean fatter – although we do seem to get through a lot of cake!)

If you could go to any festival, which would it be and why?

Good question! I act like a proper old lady these days, so it would probably be one where I can glamp, rather than camp and ideally have a private box above the crowds… Well, one can dream, right!?

A lot of my previous work has been very wedding orientated, so it seemed natural to create some wedding related events.

First came The Dorset Wedding Festival. The idea for this came about after visiting and exhibiting at many wedding fairs which all seemed the same. Brides-to-be would walk around, mostly dragging their unwilling partners behind them, avoid exhibitors who look like they’re doing a hard sell, grab some leaflets and leg it. The Dorset Wedding Festival is an enjoyable experience, not just for visitors, but exhibitors too! With live music, food stall, a bar (man crèche) and wedding suppliers, people can relax and enjoy the mini-festival feel with no hard selling! As the exhibitors are in marquees, if it rains, it just adds to the fun (lots of funky wellies!) This event takes place on Sunday 8th May at Farmer Palmer’s field, Poole, Dorset. Early bird tickets can be purchased here.

This year, The Hampshire Wedding Festival has been added, taking place on Sunday 10th April at The New Forest Showground, Brockenhurt, Hampshire. Early bird tickets can be purchased here.

Other wedding related events we created are The Dorset Wedding Supplier Awards and The Hampshire Wedding Supplier Awards. These are county awards for wedding suppliers and rather than being based on votes or popularity, the entries are blind judged, with all business names being removed. Each county has a glitzy award ceremony (ooh lah lah) in November where the winner of each category is announced. It’s not often that wedding suppliers get to let their hair down but there has been a few dance offs at these award ceremonies!

What else does South Coast Events get involved in?

As I said, we’re a little wedding obsessed, so when I came across Longthorns Farm in Dorset, I was SO excited to get involved with their weddings.

The venue started out as a campsite, providing glamping and pitches. The owners have since renovated The Parlour, put up a semi-permanent marquee and transformed the site into a fabulous wedding venue. Longthorns offers exclusivity to all of the wedding couples and you can spend the whole weekend there if you’d like, accompanied by their cute alpacas! It’s definitely a unique venue within Dorset where you can make amazing memories! Give us a shout to find out more!

And finally, what’s your life quote/motto?

There are SO many quotes that I love, especially about small businesses. One of my favourites is, “Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done. Life’s too short to think small.”

Idyllic, isn’t it? From their beautiful venue to the sheer awesomeness that is their wedding festival fairs…